(1) Field of the Invention
This invention is directed toward methods to improve voice and video communications.
In particular, to methods and apparatus which provide reliable communications over the Internet.
(2) Description of Related Art
Internet service providers (ISP) advertise connectivity speeds and sell their services based on being able to transmit data at those stated speeds. Users have the capability to check an ISP connectivity speed via web browser speed test for upload and download of data. ISPs have difficulty in providing such high speed connectivity services when the Internet traffic volume is high and congested, such as between 9 am and 5 pm.
One important method for an ISP to maintain customer satisfaction is to provide ‘burst speeds’ to customers. A burst speed for say, 5 to 30 seconds, will enable customers to check email, surf the web, and otherwise engage with the Internet in a rapid manner. When the user remains on a particular web page for reading, their data download demand is effectively stopped until they click to load the next web page. A customer's average bandwidth demand can be relatively low in this situation. However, when a customer downloads a large data file, an ISP will slow the customer connectivity speed based on their available bandwidth. This method, and other similar ones, help an ISP balance user satisfaction and available bandwidth through traffic management.
An end user who is connected to the Internet through an ISP traffic managed Internet connection, may also want to make phone or video calls over the Internet using voice over Internet protocol (VoIP). Making phone and video calls through the Internet is very affordable for the end user, and the VoIP data stream bandwidth between endpoints is relatively small compared to other Internet data streams. However, an end user who also is using the traffic managed connection by web surfing, email, blogging, looking at video clips, and the like will, at times, be very demanding on the available bandwidth. This can cause conflicts on bandwidth usage and between the Internet data streams and the VoIP data streams. The VoIP data stream may suffer, for example, if a large file is simultaneously downloaded and the download has a high priority through the end user router. Additionally, any inconsistent Internet speed causes degradation in real time Internet communications such as Voice and Video data packets. For example, VoIP data packets that have any significant delay are dropped and this will cause the VoIP transmission to become intermittent or of poor quality.
This is a known problem with VoIP data streams and many data routers can be configured to give VoIP data streams priority over the Internet data streams by reserving a portion of the Internet bandwidth for VoIP data streams. That way, both data streams can still be maintained based on a configured bandwidth. To avoid conflicts and to ensure that any VoIP communication is satisfactory, the data router restricts the connection speed to the lowest reasonable level from the ISP.
A data router can be a VoIP specific router such as a PBX router, or it can just route data to and from end users.
It should be noted, that a typical ISP connection will provide for a much faster download speed than an upload speed. Often, VoIP Quality of service (QoS) problems come from the lower upload connection speed. QoS is the overall performance of a telephony or computer network, particularly the performance seen by the computer network users.
To facilitate this, a data router is typically set up based on a speed test measurement to and from the ISP. Since the available bandwidth from the ISP usually varies, a one-time set up of a data router to establish the correct available bandwidth is problematical. A short ISP speed test based on the burst speed of the ISP will cause poor operation the router. VoIP priority will suffer when the ISP bandwidth is lower than the configured amount as the router will give too high a priority to Internet data streams rather than VoIP data streams.
Currently, a typical method to calibrate/configure router is:                1. Customer signs up for ISP service. A data router is then purchased and installed.        2. When the data router is being configured, an ISP Speed test is performed manually by an individual who is configuring the data router.        3. Once the ISP speeds are known (upload and download) the reliable speed is assumed to be somewhat lower—typically 10%.        4. The router is then configured on the reduced ISP speeds to slow down Internet traffic to ensure that the router will have a broadband large enough to effectively manage VoIP priority.        5. If the ISP has a significant speed change, then steps 1-4 have to be repeated.        
An additional problem for a specialized data router setup is that it requires the end user to be highly knowledgeable about router configuration and settings, or for the data router supplier to set up each data router individually. In either case, current art requires this to be done manually, more or less, by performing the speed test independently and adjusting the router accordingly.
A problem with this procedure is that an ISP speed will change based on time of day or the season of the year, or for holidays, etc. When the speed changes significantly, the user will have to call the supplier of the data router to obtain help. A re-configuration based on a new speed test is likely to miss the problem.
Others have worked on VoIP priority problems. U.S. Pat. No. 7,251,216 describes a common way of addressing this problem. However, methods for providing an accurate Internet Service Provider (ISP) speed test were not addressed and are a key component of providing a high quality connection. Failure to correctly set up the router will lead to frustration with Quality of Service.
An ISP will have very fast communication speeds with a relatively few number of other ISPs, and a much lower, managed speed to a large number of local users. This can cause problems with VoIP and Internet data streams, as the priorities are likely to get jumbled to a local user.
The ability of a customer to understand why their VoIP QoS has degraded is limited. Calls to router support desks occur when this happens. The ability for a customer to retune their router settings for improved QoS is limited due to a lack of knowledge at to the correct issue to address. If a reconfiguration is needed, the help desk will then have to retest the local router and type in new settings. If it is fundamentally a speed issue, changing and testing a router is relatively labor intensive event.
What is needed to correct VoIP priority, is a way to automatically provide for a data router to self configure by determining the correct available bandwidth, and additionally, to be configured to manage traffic with an ISP based on an actual sustainable speed.